Ironhack

Doing a Bootcamp with Ironhack has been one of the best decisions I've ever made.
I wanted to change career for a while but I always thought coding was way to hard to learn, in Ironhack I got lots of support and motivation from my teachers and classmates, I also learnt everything necessary to start working in a company and I got three projects to show on my portfolio.
Afterwards you will also receive support from professionals to help you find a job and advice you as much as they can.

Terrible material, they have this online platform with what is supposed to be an addition to what you learn in class with information that could be easily found on the internet with an even more in-depth explanation. The staff is awful, it takes very long to answer emails and if you communicate an issue to them they are in my experience, extremely condescending. The teacher that led the online course was very unprepared, the lesson consisted mainly of him talking and using slideshows it wasn't interactive at all, and the teacher's English level and technical level was, in my opinion, not adequate enough to teach. The only good thing is that they provide you with exercise martial, but you could access very similar coding exercises through online katas. They don't provide any specific help with careers and I know many of the people that did the Bootcamp had difficulty finding a job, just have a look on Linkedin.

I was very interested in the Data Analytics Bootcamp. After long research I decided to go with Ironhack and applied. I've been contacted with someone named Ariana Quintana to have a meeting and assist me in my application. The application began smothly but slowly turned down hell when I started asking about the course and curriculum. She was very rude and said why are you asking about Tabloue? didn't you read our Syllabus? if you are interested stuyding Tablou you shouldn't have contacted us because we don't teach it. I told her but is in the Syllabus ! and questioning my intelgiance by not reading the Syllabus. eventually she saw Tablou written in the Syllabus and said I don't know why it's there but we don't teach it. At the end I had enough with this employee and her attitude and told her I am no longer interested in attending your school ! she said well we don't want people like you too. Then asked her please to no longer send me the assisment test and hanged the meeting. I urge people in charge of Ironhack to rreevaluate this employee and give her some classes on how to talk to people and if the meeting was recored please check the way she talk to see it yourself. Thanks 

Dear Leadies and Gentelmen,

I will share with you my terrible experience with Ironhack hoping that it will be useful to you and that you will not make the mistake I made. 

I also read a lot of reviews and saw very few negative ones, even ignoring them thinking that these were just exceptions, people who did not want to learn something new. But now I know they were people telling the truth. 

I don't want to offend anyone, I just see Ironhack as a service provider and I evaluate it as I see it.

So let's begin!  

1. The Teacher – Ignacio Soretas 

He can't speak English properly!

He has a hard time understanding what we said, of course, I understand that English is not his mother language, but this is not just about pronunciation, it’s about the word combination he uses. He just lacks the ability to explain, to express himself correctly. Also, if you ask him a question, either verbal or written, he cannot understand what you are asking him, he cannot answer the question. It happened very often we asked him the same question in 1283091238901 different ways, just to understand what we are asking him and he again either says that he does not understand the questions or starts talking nonsense. Things that have nothing to do with the question.

Example:

Question: Hey Ignacio, how to clean this data? 

Answer: It’s very important to clean your data. OR I don't understand what you're asking

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It flows from topic to topic.

Very often while talking about one topic he turns to another or goes back explaining some things he forgot to say, but we talked about them 2 hours ago and now he remembered to say them.

Let me give you a similar example that will help us understand what I mean.

Let's imagine that we have a task to cook a pizza. I guess most of the people reading this post know how to cook pizza and that's why I chose this example.

Here's how Ignacio Soretas would explain how to cook a pizza.

Example:

Once you bought the dough from the store now roll it out and start making a pizza, then Michael Jackson was a very famous singer of the time, I forgot to tell you that he had no children, take the pizza out of the oven and eat.

This was an example that contained words and objects that are close to our daily lives. It was easy to detect the catch, but now imagine he is talking about stuff you hear for the first time like data analysis, statistics etc... It’s impossible to understand what he means, but he left you with confusion with many questions.

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2. Curriculum 

The simplest and most basic things we all need to know we’re not explained. Things like how to create a table (Data Frame) in Pandas (Python library used to operate with data). How to fill this table with information. How to change the values in the table and other basic stuff.

The biggest downside is that they didn't teach us to THINK like a data analyst, they didn't teach us how to ask questions and how to check them, through the data, how to clean data, and many many more. 

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Also, the exercises we had to do were not well structured and are not suitable for beginners. Task descriptions are very bad, it is difficult to understand what they want from us even for a person who is a native English speaker.

Very often the exercises included tasks that were not adequate for everyday life. Things that have nothing to do with us. Difficult to assimilate and thus further complicate the understanding of the task.

For example, things like some Pokemons and similar cartoon characters. We had the task to process a table with the characteristics of Pokemon and draw conclusions about them. Like ‘Who is the strongest Pokemon?’.

As you can guess for people who have never seen this cartoon and have no idea about Pokemon, the difficulty of the task increases. Once because you do not understand what information the table contains and second because you do not understand how the code work, with which you are trying to process the table.

It would be much better if the exercises contained things that are much closer to the problems in real life, things that we encounter every day, such as tables with information about food and so on.

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The lectures were nothing more than reading aloud, and there was nothing of added value. Not to mention that there were days when the lectures lasted about 4-5 hours from 9 to 14:00 in the afternoon and after such a long listening nothing remains in your head.

The information should be conveyed in small steps and at small intervals, not a lot of information together.

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Often they said to us that if we had questions we should ask Google or our teammates and if we failed then we would ask for help from the assistant or the teacher. Well, this brings us automatically to the question if I have to ask my classmates or Google then why did I pay you more than 7K euros?

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SQL is the number 1 required skill to find a job as a data analyst, well we learn it only for one week… but spend 3 weeks in ML doing something that nobody understands, and nobody will hire us to make a model that we don’t understand how they work.

Tableau is the number 2 required skill to find a job as a data analyst but we learn it only one day! ONLY ONE DAY, yes you read right ONLY ONE DAY!

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3. Job support is even worst. 

I will tell you only that few months later I can’t find a job in the analytics field,  and I will end there, hopefully, I helped you to understand what are the hidden costs of taking a Bootcamp at Ironhack.


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Of course, there are many more bullshits around them but yea, that’s enough for now.

As a summary!

STAY AWAY from IRONHACK! 
STAY AWAY from IRONHACK!

Go to Udemy, Coursera, etc… and remember Data Analytics isn’t a sprint it’s a lifelong journey!

IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING SIGNING UP FOR IRONHACK, PLEASE CHECK A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE AT THE END OF THIS REVIEW!

When completing Ironhack I decided to write a review after I got a job offer, as of last week I have been given a year contract as a Junior Frontend Developer.

The past few years it has been on my mind to switch careers and become a Web Developer, but I never took the chance because bootcamps are expensive and I was already dependent on my full-time salary. As COVID-19 came a long, I lost my job and had to find a new job. I knew that if I wanted to become a Web Developer, now would be the perfect time.

After reading a lot of reviews on various Web Development bootcamps in Amsterdam, I decided to sign up for Ironhack. Ironhack will schedule an interview and a test with you. If you pass, you will be accepted. As mentioned earlier, I had interest in switching careers before and have learned some HTML/CSS and some bits and pieces of JavaScript before attending Ironhack so the pre-work that you will have to complete before the first day was very easy to do for me. If you sign up, please make sure to learn HTML/CSS in advance, this will help you a lot. Not only with the pre-work, but also with the course itself.

As I said the pre-work was pretty easy for me, so I had the idea that the bootcamp would be a easy to follow as wel. Let me tell you, I have never ever been so wrong in my entire life. IT WAS HARD! As it is only 9 weeks, the bootcamp jumps straight into JavaScript. I thought they would just start with HTML/CSS and have some sort of build-up. 40 hours of being in class and 20+ hours of homework is something that you will have to cope with. Do not underestimate this as three or four students dropped out due to it being stressful. If you can, make sure to learn about JavaScript before hand. It will save you a lot of stress.

Learning JavaScript is hard and Ironhack will most definitely help you out the best way they can. If I had to rate our teacher I would rate him 11/10. Malcolm is such a cool guy and it seems that he really loves to teach others about Web Development. Also hats off to the teacher assistants Lloyd and Thomas.

I had to give the job assistance just 1 star and I am really feeling guilty towards Najim about this. Najim is Ironhack's career coach and one of the most relaxed guys that I have ever met. You could tell that he really wanted everyone to succeed. However, the career content is not that great. The exercises feel a bit useless, presentations from tech companies were very few and it just didn't live up to my expectations. We've had three presentation during the 10th week (careerweek). Of which two of them were previous allumni speaking about their experience in the tech industry thusfar, which was very interesting and motivating and the third was a company that does internal training and place you after the training. It felt like Ironhack had or has somekind of affiliate deal with them.  I'm not saying that this is correct. I would have expected to have a lot more opportunities in meeting with different companies, but I guess COVID-19 did not help neither.

As far as the campus goes, it's a 20 minute walk from Amsterdam CS and it's a decent campus. Do not expect it to be as in the pictures you see on Ironhack's website. It has enough facilities, however it can be really cold sometimes. Be sure to pack warm clothes.

Was I ready for a full-time job as developer after attending Ironhack?
Maybe. Even after winning Ironhack's Hackshow I did not feel like I was ready for a full-time job as a developer. I was not confident enough and made sure that I kept on learning.

Would I have prepared more before attending Ironhack?
Yes, definitely!

After sending out how many applications did I land a job as a developer?
After sending out 50+ application I still didn't land a job as a developer. Out of 50+ applications I was invited for an interview 4 times.

How did you land a job as a developer?
Somewhere in February (4 months after completing Ironhack) a company contacted me and invited me for an open interview. It went really well and had a second interview with one of the developers. After a week they contacted me saying that they think that my level was not good enough, but that they could see some potential. They offered me an intership for 6 months and if I were to fit in the team and be able to learn and adapt they would offer me a year contract with some great beneficials. And here I am, almost 5 months into the internship and earned myself a job.

What about your internship, did you manage with the knowledge you've got from attending Ironhack?
Ironhack provided me with a good base when it comes to Web Development, so I was able to follow along and adapt quickly. Sure, it can be very scary the first few weeks going through already excisting code, but I have learned so much during the internship I really feel a lot more confident now.

How many of your fellow students did find a job after completing Ironhack?
Out of 20 or somewhat student, three have found a job within three months after completing Ironhack.

Would I prefer to do the course online or be at the campus?
I've originally signed up for the course at the campus, but due to COVID it was a mix. Following the course online and from home has some benefits as you do not need to travel, but being at the campus with fellow students was really nice. I really enjoyed the days that I was at the campus, especially on Fridays where we had some beers after the project presentations. Good times.

What could Ironhack do better?
In my honest opinion I think they should extend the course from 9 to at least 12 weeks. Learning frontend and backend within 9 weeks is a pain in the ***. You have to go through so many lectures within a certain amount of time that it can be very overwelming. During the careerweek there should be a lot more presentations from companies and one on one time with these companies as wel.

What did I like the most?
The three project weeks where you be creative and show off what you've been learning the two weeks before that. The day of the presentations was definitely a highlight of my time at Ironhack.

NOW FOR THE IMPORTANT NOTE!
During my first two weeks fellow students were telling me that they did get a discount because either they asked for it, or because they paid the full amount in once. We are talking about a discount of € 2000,- which is A LOT of money. I paid the full prive and also paid the full amount in once, but did not get any discount. I've sent Ironhack several emails about this and it was handled by the owners of Ironhack and they immediately denied my request. So if you want to attend Ironhack, please ask for a discount as it can save you up to € 2000,-!! 

I enjoyed Ironhack's culture and the other students that were in the course, but the performance of our teacher and curriculum was simply not straightforward or clear. Halfway through of the Berlin's Full-time data analytics course, I withdrew from the course due to the confusion and lack of comprehensive lessons. With 7 years of data-analytics experience, I didn't think it would be confusing to understand the teacher, however it was simply painful going so fast-paced. For a course that was marketed to me with a strong focus in the curriculum, the pedagogy and pacing from the teacher didn't seem to work for me (or others in the class based on their complaints), as it often didn't make sense (i.e unnatural progression of lessons, class activities that didn't test you on the lesson just covered, or even questions that were badly written that it takes native-English speakers 10m to figure out what they're asking...) They did not use the online course features as much as they could have and relied on the teacher to provide all learnings. The teacher and the teaching assistants were very kind and did try to address my issues, however, the changes did not happen quick enough nor comprehensively.

Due to Corona regulations, there may have been some consolidation of courses, which caused our class simply to be too big (about 29 students at the start, when I was told there would only be 15) - this with the fact that the teacher didn't field questions, or retained the focus of the module, questions from students (with diverse backgrounds and experience) often took the discussions to places that were not adequate for beginners.

Perhaps I had bad timing and simply landed in a strange class since our original teacher had been replaced due to him getting Corona. However, Ironhack's performance has left me with a bitter taste in my mouth and I feel like they were simply a learning/teaching startup that grew too quickly to fulfill the needs of the students. They were going for quantity of students in their class not the quality of teaching/graduates. They're culture focused on "staying positive" and as great as this is, when providing criticism to the program director, they were focused mainly on "actionable" items - relying on solutions from the students, not from the teaching staff or administrative team. 

From those graduates that I still keep in touch with from my class, they have candidly mentioned that it wasn't the best experience for them either.

During this bootcamp I learned so much in such a short notice, I never could do that with any self learning course. You learn very valuable skills you only learn by actually doing, trying, falling, rising and working together. No matter what your entry level is, the mentors always were sure you were not left behind and were very patient and willing to explain it until the whole class understood. I felt always very safe to ask any questions, which is very important to me.
Instead of the bootcamp on location, I attent the remote cohort. At Ironhack they really know how to organized remote classes. It was a good balance between classes, tasks and self learning. Even remote, every one was always involved in the classes throughout the day. And there was no room for slacking :) , which I also very much like. Make sure you do not plan anything at all these three months. It will be 100% bootcamp which I was grateful for afterwards. 
Besides learning, we also build up a bond within the class. In the end it felt like friends that I still speak after the bootcamp was done. The Ironhack community is a big pro of (and after) the bootcamp.

I thought about it for a long time, and just did it. I left comfortable en secure job for this bootcamp, and did not regret it at all.

I started the full time web development cohort at the peak of COVID, we were the first cohort to go fully remote. The folks at Ironhack were all open to recommendations on how to make the remote experience better. I started the bootcamp as a career changer with no experience in the tech field. It is a lot of work, I know they say your day will typically run from 9-5 but the reality is that you will probably have to put in extra work to fully grasp some of the concepts taught. You have two weeks of learning followed by a project and you follow that schedule for 8 weeks and then you start career week. Throughout the 9 weeks you will also have guest speakers. The benefit of being remote allowed us access to guest speakers that you wouldn't normally get to speak to because they are not in the Miami Area. Following the completion of the cohort begins career week. Where you meet with the outcomes manager who will help you solidify your resume offer advice on how to make yourself standout in the job market as well as help you navigate the sea of job opportunities on career sites like LinkedIn. I am overall happy with my experience at Ironhack and would recommend it to someone looking to start a career in the tech field. 

Studying at Ironhack was the best decision I could have made for my career. This time last year I was working in the service industry and desired a career change, and then I discovered Ironhack in Miami, FL and decided to make the commitment to complete the Web Development bootcamp. My instructors, Sandra and Marcos, and my TA Stephen were amazing. Even though the course is part time, they were always available after hours to answer any questions. I was weary about taking a bootcamp class online due to COVID-19, but my instructors and the career coach, Brito, really made up for us not being able to see each other in person. Brito organized virtual meetups for developers and designers almost weekly which featured guest speakers from individuals in the tech industry in Miami and successful Ironhack alums. After graduating, Brito provided tools to help form my resume and showed me and the rest of my cohort tips to successfully land a job as a bootcamp grad. 3 months after graduating I landed a position as a full time developer in Miami, FL. Ironhack has completely changed my life and I am so grateful to all of the amazing people working there who helped make this happen.